Ukraine to celebrate Christmas on 25 December for first time
Ukraine to celebrate Christmas on 25 December for first time
Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians. But in July this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill into law making 25 December the official Christmas holiday as the country adopted the Western, Gregorian calendar.
NATO isn't going to fuck you, Ukraine.
Why not on the 24th?
why do somd habe it 24th im ocnfusef
Meanwhile, Kyiv Orthodox priest Mykhailo Omelian said: "Everything that was related to Russia, and everything that Russia did the same way we did, provoked disgust among people."
Looks like freedom
friesdressing is back on the menu boys!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But in July this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill into law making 25 December the official Christmas holiday as the nation adopted the Western, Gregorian calendar.
The move, which has the backing of the church, marks another step by Kyiv towards eradicating all traces of Russian influence in the country as it continues to fight Moscow's invasion.
The attack that began in February 2022 rallied the nation and sparked many Ukrainians to reject historical ties to Kyiv's former ruler, including the Russian language and culture.
Ukraine also wants to join the European Union, and many citizens see membership as an important affirmation of what they believe is their country's historical place in Europe.
Ukrainian MP and leader of the Golos Zmin Party, Kira Rudik, told Sky News that changing the date to 25 December was "incredibly important", adding: "We are joining our European family in all aspects of our life including the day when we celebrate Christmas.
Standing outside Kyiv's golden-domed St Michael's Monastery, Tetiana, 25, said she would celebrate on 25 December for the first time.
The original article contains 421 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Merry Christmas to the people of Ukraine! 🇺🇦 🌲
Why?
Ukraine and Russia are both historically Orthodox Christian countries. These churches celebrate Christmas based on the Julian calendar, and until 2100 this date will be 14 days behind the Gregorian calendar used by the rest of the world.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church already began to use the Gregorian calendar in 2014, distancing itself from the Russian Orthodox Church, and now this date has been codified into Ukrainian law.
All this just proves that Christians don't know the first thing about astronomy because the actual date of the solstice flips between the 21st and 22nd of December. Which should actually be the 31st and 1st according to the original intent of the calendar, as said, Christians have no clue about Astronomy and allowed the thing to drift.
It should be noted that many Orthodox churches have actually been using 25th December as the date for 100 years now, following the 1923 Council of Constantinople. The choice to shift to the Gregorian date (or rather the Revised Julian date, but it's the same day as the Gregorian one) is just a shift to align with other Eastern Orthodox patriarchates rather than a departure from Eastern Orthodoxy altogether
To seperate themselves from russia. As they use the Julian calander celebrateing in jan.
I assume it is also to unify with the west. As that has been aboided in the past due to russias threats.
But as theu no longer have reason to avoid joining nato. I imagine officially sharing the same calendar seem like a bery easy unifying move.
I aaaume anyone who feels the need to celebrate on the 7th jan still can
Although hard to understand why any obe would care. Its not like xmas is the actual date of any past event. But instead the time pagan religions in europe were already celibrateimg yuletide etc.
Isn't the Roman calendar an Orthodox thing? Aren't like 60% of Ukrainians Orthodox?
Every day Ukraine loses more of its cultural identity as it gets "Westernized" by the West and "Russianified" by Russia.
as it gets “Westernized” by the West and “Russianified” by Russia.
What.
72% of Ukrainians declare themselves orthodox, literally the same church as Russians. Only in 2018 they had the schism but solely on political reasons, not the religious ones, to grab state control over the church.
Orthodox churches are kinda special in the sense that they're very oecumenical, don't go around saying "XYZ isn't true Christendom", venture outside of their territory only carefully (e.g. to serve migrants who happen to be orthodox, but actively avoiding becoming a promiment church in those areas), but OTOH also tend to be staunchly conservative when it comes to their own traditions. They're not centrally-run like the Catholic Church, while Constantinople holds a special place individual territorial churches are self-ruling.
So when e.g. Lutheran Churches say "Everyone is a priest, so obviously women too can be reverends", Rome is writing bulletins warning their own believers of participating in "so-called sacraments" in "erring churches", whereas the Orthodox go "nah we're fine as we are, thanks but no thanks".
Splitting off from Moscow is indeed political, also, complicated, also, partly theological (because ecclesiastical jurisdiction), there's two major branches: The re-constituted old Kiev patriachate, dating back to the 90s, (Moscow back in the days dissolved it without even asking Constantinople which readily accepted the reconstitution), and an organisational arm of the Moscow patriarchate which declared independence form Moscow in the wake of the invasion. That's also the one with the spy monks though not all of that "we're independent" talk is necessarily a front the church has, aside from political hacks, also actually religious people in it. Shocking, I know.
Switching to a different calendar is theological but Constantinople certainly won't care short of saying "nah we're fine". It's, after all, what "autocephalous" means.
USA! USA! USA!